Everybody Loves Bella Swan
by blueandblack
Summary: Rosalie reflects on Bella Swan's presence in her life. Jacob/Rosalie. Allusions to Edward/Rosalie, Emmett/Rosalie, Edward/Bella, Jacob/Bella.


Rosalie worked hard to protect herself. She always had.

Or perhaps it was because she _hadn't_ always that she did so very diligently now.

It was perfectly clear to her: Power, all the pieces of it she had, grand and vampiric, petty and human... Power was to be craved and sheltered. She lived with too many strong people to be weak.

That was why Rosalie worked hard at protecting herself from Edward's mind.

The car and the cafeteria were the only places she really had to worry about her thoughts; those were the only places she spent an extended amount of time in close proximity to him. The Cullens were a family in the true human sense of the word, but Rosalie and Emmett were always just a little distant, always just a little apart.

Not in the cafeteria though.

If they sat on their own, some kid might be stupid enough to think they wanted company and what a nightmare that would be. It was always the Cullens, all of them together with their full trays, not-eating as inconspicuously as possible.

So Rosalie had to work. She filled her mind with pretty things - ribbons, red velvet shoes, her own face. Shallow, inane things - what a horrible bore history was (especially the parts she'd lived) and how grateful she was that her skin didn't blemish.

The last thing she wanted was to be _interesting_ to Edward.

The last thing she wanted was for him to understand her.

It became more difficult to control her lunch-time thoughts when Bella Swan started to sit with them. The Cullens, all of them together, and Bella Swan, _eating._

It took an extra effort to focus on frivolity and froth, to make damn sure she wasn't thinking about the human girl while Edward stared into the pale blushing face and smiled like he was somebody else.

She wished Edward could read Bella's mind, because at least then he'd be completely absorbed by her and she wouldn't have to be so careful.

_Don't kid yourself, he already is._

She sometimes wished he was aware that her mind, her true mind, was just as silent to him as Bella's was.

--

When they had thought she was dead, Rosalie had been appalled at the relief she had felt.

_Dead?_ That was the last thing she wanted, truly the very last thing.

She was sure it was her punishment that the whole debacle brought them back to Forks, back to Bella Swan.

There was some kind of love triangle going on now and it was all very soap and bubbles and Rosalie would try to think of it that way when Edward was near.

Soap and bubbles.

--

When she was alone she thought more freely.

_Everybody loves Bella Swan._

Rosalie found this both curious and irritating.

Edward loved Bella, stupidly, irrationally, and she thanked God for Emmett because when they had sung to him he had just drained them dry.

Far too many of the students at Forks High loved her, or _wanted_ her at least, especially that one who still followed her around everywhere like a poor little puppy. Matt. Mike. The one whose parents had the store.

And of course the beautiful wolf boy. Beautiful, yes, even though he _stank._

All these fervent attractions and affections gnawed at Rosalie, because she was well aware that she, for one, was vastly more beautiful than Bella Swan, by anybody's standards.

And yet, she knew too well how little that meant now. She was dead, even as she walked and talked and breathed useless empty breaths and _lived_, she was a dead thing.

It shouldn't have surprised her that they thrilled at the life in that girl, least of all Edward, who had always been as cold and as broken as she was.

Still, it irritated her. There was nothing special about Bella, nothing to set her apart from any other human girl with a brain and a heart and a pleasant face.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. There was her blood for Edward, certainly. Her newness for the school children - though surely that charm should be wearing off by now.

For the wolf boy? There Rosalie drew a blank. Though of course, she didn't know him as she knew Edward, nor as several decades of observation had taught her to know ordinary humans beings.

The only thing she really knew about him - _Jacob Black_ - was that he didn't want Bella to be one of them, for the same and for different reasons as she didn't want Bella to be one of them.

Bella wanted it desperately. Edward wanted it desperately and hated himself for it, she knew that.

_She hated him for it too._

Alice wanted a new sister, so Jasper wanted it as well, but only for her. Carlisle had always placed Edward's happiness above all else. Esme seemed to fill an endless need with this collection of beings she called children. Emmett didn't really care one way or the other.

Rosalie smiled to herself at the irony. She and the beautiful stinking wolf boy were the only two who were really on the same page.

--

The battle came and went and the only real casualties were the newborns who had made Rosalie shudder and cringe.

The newborns and the russet wolf with the penchant for heroics. He would live though, Carlisle had seen to that.

Rosalie had played nurse, too eager to stand by the doctor's side and pass sharp implements and bandages, thinking with strange glee how Bella Swan should really be here instead, but she was too busy being afraid of a little blood.

Once, when he had been heavily sedated, Jacob had smiled at her loosely and drawled that she was "so pretty, the prettiest girl in the world."

Rosalie had rolled her eyes at Carlisle and tried not to feel anything.

Feelings weren't power.

The wolf boy's hadn't been. Bella was marrying Edward in three weeks.

Hers hadn't been.

_Bella was marrying Edward in three weeks._

--

Alice fussed so much she probably wouldn't have noticed even if she could see the wolves. Rosalie saw Jacob Black outside the church when she had ushered Bella and the afore-mentioned maid of honor in to nauseating strains of _Here comes the bride._

She hurried over to him and said in a hushed voice "You shouldn't be here."

Jacob blinked, then grinned slowly at her. "Why not, I was invited."

"Oh," Rosalie said.

She frowned, eyeing Jacob's faded jeans and fraying tee-shirt skeptically, "You're not really dressed for the occasion."

He smirked. "Relax I'm not staying. Not even going in. Just want to see them come out."

Rosalie looked at him for a moment, debating whether to just hurry back into the church and leave him with his misery or say something. Something to help or to hurt, she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do with this moment.

"I..." She hesitated. "They will come out, you know. Together. It's over. You should try to move on."

"You think I give a damn about the wedding?" Jacob spat, eyes on the ground. He added "It's what comes after that counts," gritting his teeth so hard the words barely sounded.

Rosalie swallowed, stared at his face, tried to think silly things like how pretty it was, how pretty hers was, reminded herself that Edward wasn't looking into her mind right now so it really didn't matter what she thought, it didn't matter.

When Jacob looked up at her, his eyes were ringed red and burning with anger. "I'm just worried that she'll stink like you."

She flinched imperceptibly.

A dull wind rustled. The organ shut up. Rosalie laughed her loveliest, cruelest laugh.

"If you don't give a damn about the wedding then go home."

She walked away, stiletto-heeled feet silent on the grass, muttered "I don't stink. _He_ stinks."

--

At the reception, Rosalie sat on the fringes with Emmett, smiled at his running commentary _- She doesn't look half as hot as you did in 73... God all these cooked cows and no blood for us, what kind of a celebration is this -_ kissed him like happily married women at weddings always kissed their husbands.

She watched Bella, she watched Edward. She hated them both. For being stupid. And for being happy.

It had been worse at the church though. They had written their own vows and when Edward had said his, all love and earnestness, she'd been torn between vomiting into her purse and crying like a baby. Of course in reality, she was physically incapable of doing either.

She had dabbed at her dry cheeks instead and smiled fondly at the humans, glanced toward the park when they were leaving and seen that Jacob Black was not there.

--

"You're not supposed to be here."

It felt like an echo. It was.

He was lurking in the trees outside the Cullen house, just as he had done every night since the wedding.

"Are you going to tell?" Jacob asked. The words were slightly slurred, like he might have been drinking.

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Alice will-"

"She can't see me, remember? And she can't see you when you're with me either." He smiled slowly at her expression. "Nice huh?"

Rosalie felt a familiar thrill run through her. It was nice. Neutralizing Alice's power was very nice indeed.

She shook her head, blonde curls rippled and shifted.

"You can stop hovering around, you know. She's not going to come back changed. Alice sees it. Or rather, she doesn't see it."

"A reprieve. How wonderful." Jacob grinned-glowered, a strange hybrid. "Does _Alice_ see when he _is_ going to do it?"

Rosalie sighed. "If she did, she certainly wouldn't tell me."

"Why not?"

"Because she thinks I might interfere go home." She said it all without pauses, as though it were one sentence.

He ignored the last part, stepped toward her instead. "And why would you interfere?"

She shrugged. "Wouldn't you?"

He snorted. "Of course. I don't want her to be dead."

Rosalie kept her expression even, her voice low. "And neither do I."

Jacob's eyes widened and he stepped back.

"Go home," she said again.

"Wow," he breathed, still reeling. "Now that's self-insight."

"Oh for God's sake." Rosalie put one slender hand on her hip, ran the other quickly through her too-glossy hair. "We are not all as obtuse as you might think. Even Edward..." She broke off. "If it makes you feel any better I'm not sure he will ever go through with it."

Jacob blinked, coughed too loudly. "Why not?"

_"Shh,"_ Rosalie cautioned angrily, glancing behind her and stepping further into the shadows.

"Why not?" he whispered exaggeratedly, obnoxiously.

She looked into Jacob Black's pretty, twisted face for a long time, forehead crinkling and smoothing, as if she were deciding whether to answer or walk away.

"Because he doesn't believe in this existence either." - a beat - "Because he loves her too much," she barely whispered those last words, looking down quickly, hating the wistful edge to her voice.

Jacob's eyes lingered on her for a moment, caught the shift in her throat as she swallowed, watched her eyelids flutter over a private thought.

Then he laughed, and again it was far too loud.

Rosalie whipped her head around anxiously. _"Shut up"_ she hissed.

"You're in love with him. You're in love with Cullen, too."

"Shut up," she repeated, her usually bell-like voice low and thick like gravel, "And go home."

She turned to walk away.

"You're - " Jacob grabbed hold of her wrist, pulled her back around to him. "In love with him." He was grinning down at her slightly maniacally, his hand burning against her marble skin.

Rosalie stared defiantly into his dark eyes, dark, almost black like Edward's were when he was starved.

"In my way." She said quietly.

Jacob's hand tightened around her wrist, soft rough fingers crushing against her smooth hardness. "And what is _your way_?"

Rosalie kept her eyes on his, fixed like golden ice, pulled each word out of herself slowly, deliberately. "Cold. Afraid. Hiding."

Jacob released her wrist with a kind of a throwing motion and stepped back.

"And yet, you're all over the other one," he sneered.

"Emmett's different." Rosalie bit back.

Jacob stared at her lovely stone face for a moment, took two quick breaths that could almost have been sobs, looked away.

"I'm the _different_ one with Bella." He smiled bitterly at the dirt before looking up. "It seems like it's a whole lot more fun with you."

--

When the newlyweds came home, Bella was indeed intact and Rosalie thought how strange it was that to be intact for humans was still to be crumbling minute by minute. Fading gloriously away.

Of course she didn't think this when she greeted them. She thought _'Well, it's Edward and Bella. Goodness that color is drab on her. I do wish she'd look into wearing prints and florals. A little blush wouldn't hurt either.'_ Or something along those vapid lines.

Her mind wandered for one brief second to the fact that Jacob Black had probably watched them come in. She caught herself quickly, eyes flickering to Edward, but he was kissing Bella, she needn't have worried.

--

"Can't you just do us both a favor and seduce him?"

He had come to her of course, decisions were far too dangerous for Rosalie. Unless he was already there. She smiled to herself, pleased to be screened.

"Seduce Edward?" She laughed melodically. "Oh I tried. A long time ago."

Jacob raised an eyebrow, skeptical. "In your _way_?"

"Don't be silly. In the traditional way."

Jacob stopped and stared into her incomparably beautiful face, brow furrowed. "And he turned you down?" He didn't try to hide his disbelief.

Rosalie laughed again, kept walking the dark thin street. "I was as baffled as you are."

Jacob frowned. "I can't decide whether I'm impressed or appalled."

"Well at any rate," Rosalie continued. "I tried and I failed. Apparently only Bella Swan will do."

She glanced sideways just in time to see his face darken at the name.

A few more steps and he turned to her, held up a hand. "Wait a minute, you don't stink like this to him too, do you?"

She glared in response. "No, that's _your_ problem. And don't think you don't smell just as bad to me."

"Just as bad? Really? That must be awful for you."

"Oh funny."

They walked and Rosalie began to wonder why she hadn't just crossed the street the minute she'd seen him coming. The hiding was pleasant, but really it was his power, not hers. It wasn't something she could rely on. It wasn't something she could hold on to.

"What it's like," he asked quietly, shaking her from her thoughts.

"What?"

"The smell."

She grimaced, thought for a moment. "Earthy. Like pine needles and rain."

"Earth, pine needles, rain. All smell pretty good to me."

"And to me too, " she conceded, adding "Under normal circumstances."

Jacob shook his head, "That makes no sense."

She ignored him. "And how do I smell, sorry, _stink_ to you?"

He grinned, sing-songed "Sugar and spice and all things nice. It's hideous."

"Ah, vampires and little girls. Made from the same ingredients."

"And yet little girls smell fine." He screwed up his face at that. "Not that I go around smelling little girls."

Rosalie laughed, loudly, freely. "That's good to know. Sane vampires are no more impressed by pedophilia than sane humans."

"Well that's good to know too. I'll ignore the whole killing people thing, as long as there's no kiddie-fiddling going on." His tone was harsh, sarcastic. It cut Rosalie more than it should.

"We don't eat people." Her words were short, clipped, indignant. "Our family is clean."

He shrugged. "Now you are. And that's just great, really, but I don't think - "

"Always." She interrupted. "Always for me."

His eyes narrowed, swept down to the pavement. She could tell he didn't believe her. And maybe she didn't believe herself either.

_Bodies, bodies, snapped, broken, burned and bruised. Royce's face like a dinner plate of horror._

Was that _clean?_

Jacob had stopped walking. "Let me try something," he said, put his hand on her arm, turned her to face him, leaned in and breathed a long line along her neck.

He pulled back and looked at her, considering, his hand still on her arm.

"Absolutely disgusting."

Rosalie scowled, reached one hand up to his neck and brought her face to his hair.

She drew back slightly. "Foul." She whispered, eyes hard, breath cool against his lips.

Her hand stayed at his neck and she felt his tighten hotly around her arm.

The slightest shift toward each other...

His mouth on hers was sickening, terrifying, burned like the venom when she'd been turned. And yet she pushed up, slid herself coldly into him, ran her tongue along his teeth, holding her breath against the smell, mind spinning with newness and fear.

He was gone before she could open her eyes.

Scraps of cotton and denim blew around her in the breeze.


End file.
